A Lexico-semantic Analysis of the University Anthem of Lagos State University of Education, Lagos, Nigeria.

Abstract

 Anthems have been written and sung over the years to project and celebrate the entity being portrayed. In a bid to effectively convey the needed information and messages on the object being portrayed, word choice and meanings associated with and their collocations are expected to perform the task at hand. Using Halliday's (1994) Systemic Functional Linguistic   theory because it lays emphasis on both the context and the function of language, this paper does a lexico-semantic analysis of the anthem of the Lagos State University of Education (LASUED). Our analysis amongst others reveals that the words in the anthem are not chosen at random; they are carefully selected to evoke a sense of pride, unity and shared identity among members of the university pride, unity ideology and values of the institution are beautifully conveyed.